


The Price of Victory

by Caedus501



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 05:40:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9478073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caedus501/pseuds/Caedus501
Summary: During the medal ceremony on Yavin IV Mon Mothma reflects on the moral implications of the Galactic Civil War and considers what is, what was, and what might have been.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of riffing off what Alexander Freed did in the Rogue One novelization when he used Mon Mothma's point of view. I ultimately decided not to tag this work as Cassian/Jyn because it's really only there if you squint real hard, clap your hands, and believe. Kind of like it is in the movie.

Former Senator Mon Mothma stood off the right of the proceedings on the platform of the Throne Room of the Massassi temple that the Alliance had coopted for their headquarters. Today’s gathering was to be both a memorial and a medal ceremony for the new heroes of the Rebellion. Generals Dodanna and Draven had argued that she should be the one dolling out the honors for the destruction of the Death Star, but she was more than happy to let Princess Leia be the center of attention for the day. Mon Mothma would not have been able to muster the necessary enthusiasm in any case. Of course, if there was anyone who deserved to be emotionally compromised right now it would be the Princess. She had watched her home planet be destroyed in the blink of an eye, and with it lost everyone and everything she knew. Nevertheless, Leia’s bearing was regal as ever and her face perfectly serene. Clearly the young woman possessed reserves of strength that Mon Mothma could only marvel at. Mothma’s mind, however, kept drifting off to more somber topics, namely everything that had happened, good and bad, which had finally brought them to this day.

  
Looking out at the assembled members of the Rebellion, the former senator could see countless people who openly showed their grief for their fallen comrades and, in the case of the many Alderaanians among the Rebels, their families. Mothma could not help but fill in the gaps in her mind’s eye where hundreds of men and women of all species should have also been present. The battle at Scarif and the attack on the massive battle station had been costly.

  
For both sides.

  
It was something Mothma could not forget. The Empire had fired their superweapon at one of their own outposts without a second thought. No effort had been made to evacuate Imperial personnel before the Scarif Citadel Tower had been wiped clean out of existence along with the majority of the planet’s surface. The hundreds of Rebel soldiers on the beaches or in the air would have been a nuisance barely worth considering when giving the order to fire the weapon. Except, of course, for the fact that the _Rogue One_ crew had successfully laid hands on the Death Star schematics and that was a breach that could not go unanswered. It seemed a flimsy excuse for the loss of so much life, but it appeared the Empire saw things differently.

  
Then again, who was she to judge? Threatening military target or not, there had to have been millions of people working on that Death Star. How many of them truly deserved to die due to the Emperor’s iron fisted scare tactics? No doubt there had been engineers, radar technicians, doctors, or what have you that simply needed work and the Empire was hiring. All in all, a dozen or so high ranking Imperial Officers combined with the most terrifying weapon she had ever imagined were poor ballast on the scale measuring moral superiority concerning the death count between the Empire and the Alliance.

  
Not that Mon Mothma regrets the destruction of the Death Star. It is merely more of a grey area than some at Base One happily believe.

  
It was those grey areas that sometimes kept her up at night. Despite what General Draven may think, Mothma is perfectly aware of just what type of things he has had his agents do for the Rebellion over the years. In a war that has come to revolve mainly around large scale naval engagements -- for which they can never quite muster enough numbers -- she can appreciate the need for the Rebellion to gain an upper hand whenever and however they can; but that does not necessarily make all their methods right. Mothma has been present for enough mission debriefs to notice the trend in Draven’s officers. The detached mode of speech, the absent look in their eyes, the precise yet somehow still vague nature of their answers. Mothma had a difficult time imagining the psychological strains of living in the shadows like that. The moral implications of what people like the now gone Captain Cassian Andor did for the cause shake the foundations of what the Alliance stands for; of what it is that they all believe in and fight for. Perhaps that was why Andor had uncharacteristically disobeyed orders and flown off for a relatively straightforward mission of data extraction.

  
She knew Captain Andor, of course, but more by reputation than on a more personal level. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say she knew him by his reports and his work. He was ruthlessly efficient and unswervingly loyal to the Alliance. Draven always spoke well of Andor and seemed to use him for many of the Alliance’s more delicate intelligence missions. Nevertheless, the qualities that made him so good at his job also made him seem somewhat empty whenever she had spoken with him. He had been fighting for the cause for so long now that it had settled in his bones, but he didn’t really _feel_ the fight anymore. Captain Andor had done what was asked of him, done his duty, nothing more.

  
Until he didn’t.

  
Until the seasoned soldier had found something that made him want to fight back against the Empire in a way that he had not been able to in years. In all likelihood, that something, or someone as Mothma rather suspected, had also been lost at Scarif.

  
It was with a small, sad smile that Mon Mothma thought about Jyn Erso. She thought about all the emotion hidden in the depths of her dark eyes, in such contrast to Captain Andor’s empty gaze. She thought about the fire and energy contained within Jyn’s diminutive figure. She thought about the future a brave young woman had sacrificed for the good of the galaxy.

  
Mon Mothma watched as the Princess placed a medal around the neck of Captain Solo and all she could wonder was what might have been accomplished if Jyn had survived Scarif? She could imagine a passionate princess and a fiery young woman undoubtedly becoming fast friends. Mothma smiled to herself at the thought. Leia and Jyn. Who would have been able to contend with that duo? The princess to inspire hope, confidence, and righteousness in the hearts of all. Jyn to reignite the passion in the depths of the souls of men and women hardened by years of war. Between the two of them the galaxy would have been swept clean of the Empire’s malice in no time at all.

  
Mon Mothma paused as a golden medal came to rest around the shoulders of the heralded x-wing pilot. She allowed herself a moment to consider her own role as the nominal head of the Rebel Alliance.

  
What might the _three_ of them have accomplished? She had years of diplomatic experience and now years of familiarity with making the hard decisions about life and death that all wars necessitate. Her strong but sedate sense of purpose would have tempered the heat of Leia’s and Jyn’s youthful convictions, but never would she have out shone them. Together they could have gotten the Council to actually agree to actively _do_ something about the Empire, rather than the continuous bickering that resulted in nothing but a fractured leadership. Yes, the three of them, together, strong women and warriors all; one of the heart, one of the mind, and one of the spirit. They could have taken the galaxy by storm.

  
As it was, Mothma gazed down at what she did have arrayed before her. In addition to a fierce princess who embodied the spirit of the Alliance, there was also a small army dedicated to the cause. They were pilots, soldiers, spies, technicians, smugglers, defectors, refugees, doctors, and diplomats. They were Rebels, each and every one of them. Truth be told, even with the heavy losses the Rebellion had recently incurred, the Alliance had never been stronger. The Empire’s destruction of Alderaan and the rumors about what really happened on Jedha had driven several more star systems to pledge their support to the Rebellion. The smaller bases spread throughout the galaxy were reporting that people were turning up in increasing numbers to declare their intentions to do their part and join the Alliance. Sometimes they had money and resources to offer; sometimes all they had to offer were their skills or a blaster; occasionally all they had was their zeal and a desperate desire to right a galaxy of wrongs.

  
But most importantly of all, now she had a fresh new face for the Rebellion, two even, three if she counted Solo. Skywalker, Organa, and Solo could represent the fighting spirit of the Alliance in a way the old guard, mired in politics as they were, simply could not. The three of them carried their optimism around them like cloaks and it affected everyone they came in contact with. Perhaps Captain Solo was a little more jaded than Skywalker and the Alderaanian princess, but he always had an easy smile and a joke at the ready. Mon Mothma honestly could not remember a time when she had seen so many smiles on the faces of those stationed at Base One, and that was even with the looming evacuation of Yavin 4 on the immediate horizon.

  
When the room burst into applause for Solo, Skywalker, and the Wookiee Chewbacca, Mon Mothma joined in automatically while thinking about how things might have been different had the Scarif operation not ended in tragedy. She had a feeling that Andor and Solo would have made for some interesting, and most likely stressful, times for Rebellion command. Mothma had no doubt that the two would not have gotten along. Not at first anyway. Given time they probably would have seen that they had a little of each other in themselves: Andor did not always follow the rules and Solo seemed to have a deep sense of loyalty hidden beneath all that swagger. On first introduction, however, it was probable that punches would have been thrown.

  
Missing out on the opportunity to properly question the Imperial pilot that had flown the _Rogue One_ shuttle was another loss. As a cargo pilot he must have had information about Imperial hyperspace routes and general protocol that would have been useful for strategic and logistical planning. It made reconnaissance and scouting missions just that much safer when the Rebels knew more going in. Not to mention the possibility of intercepting Imperial shipments of anything from food to equipment to medical supplies, all of which the Rebellion was sorely in need of. Even someone the Empire would have considered a low level defector was a treasure trove of information for those who knew how to use it.

  
And what about the Guardians of the Whills? She may not have had a chance to speak with them in person, but she had read the transcripts of their debriefs after arriving from Eadu. What would the devout blind monk have made of the fresh faced young man who walked onto the base with a lightsaber hanging brazenly from his belt and claiming to have traveled with the once famous Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi? She imagined very one sided conversations between a philosophizing monk, his stoic companion, and a young man with stars in eyes and fingers itching to get back behind the controls of an x-wing.

  
Yes, Luke Skywalker. Mon Mothma closed her eyes and breathed slowly for a moment as the applause died down. She was no fool. She and every other serving senator during the Clone Wars knew that surname. Anakin Skywalker along with Obi-Wan Kenobi were probably the most widely recognized of the Jedi during that time. She did not think Skywalker was a particularly common name which meant this blonde haired farmboy (who seems to have donned a truly atrocious jacket for today’s special occasion) had to be related somehow. A younger cousin seemed the most logical answer given that the Jedi had rules against romantic attachment, but something told Mothma the relation was much closer than that.

As soon as she had first heard the blue eyed pilot’s name she had begun to piece together hints and observations she had gathered over the years. Sometimes Bail Organa would say something more than a little curious about his daughter. On other occasions she would remember an old friend of hers from the Senate who had had an especially close friendship with the Jedi. Moreover, that friend had been pregnant when she died. Or, she had _appeared_ to be pregnant, as Mon Mothma had come to suspect from years of reading between the lines. If her suspicions were correct, what might that mean for the Alliance? For the Galaxy? To have a Jedi fight against the monstrosity the Republic had turned into would be a symbolic boon almost too good to be true. Did she have the right to ask Skywalker to do that? Was it worth watching the buoyancy in his step fade only to be replaced by the heavy gait of a soldier weary of fighting?

  
Through the haze of her spiraling thoughts Mon Mothma noticed the ceremony beginning to wind down as the formal proceedings devolved into knots of people swapping congratulations and condolences alike. She knew that there was something of a celebratory party planned, complete with specially procured Corellian and Kuati liquors, to allow everyone to blow off some steam before they had to complete preparations for the move off world. Mothma thought it sounded like an exercise in forced congeniality. It seemed as though she had the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders at the moment and a party was not the time to unburden herself. Instead, Mon Mothma quietly slipped off the side of the platform into the shadows lining the room. She walked passed an overlapping sea of orange flight suits, khaki uniforms, and grey jumpsuits as she made her way out of the throne room and into the unusual stillness of the main hangar. For a brief moment she gazed up at the giant, red gas planet that had once been all that stood between the Rebellion and destruction at the hands of the Death Star. Even with that particular threat erased, the Imperial war machine continued to spread its might and oppression across the galaxy.

  
The fight was not over yet which meant, for better or worse, Mon Mothma had work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> I think perspective is quite important when considering the costs of war (more on this in future fics), which is what got me thinking about Mon Mothma's thoughts on the situation in the first place. Also, I didn't mean to reduce Bodhi down to his informational value, but it seems logical from someone who never really met him. Anyway, thanks for reading!


End file.
